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Monday, April 29, 2019

CAAN revokes suspension order of Capt Lama

Less than 24 hours after the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) suspended senior captain and spokesperson for Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) Vijay Lama from his post, barring him from conducting any international flights, the authority has lifted the ban on Lama.

Clarifying the decision to repeal the suspension order that barred Lama from conducting international flights, Sanjeev Gautam, director general of CAAN, said that Lama was under stress and suffering from anxiety and sleeplessness, as he was handling two jobs simultaneously.

“We had sought a clarification from him regarding the statements that he had made in the recent past in the media,” he said, adding that he had replied stating that he was under stress.

Gautam further informed that CAAN has asked Captain Lama not to conduct any flights at the moment, as aviation rules prohibits pilots from flying when in stress.

“Since he was delivering controversial statements to the media as spokesperson for NAC, we’d asked the airline to suspend him from the post, which the national flag carrier did,” he said. “As Captain Lama was also under stress while handling two jobs, we had asked NAC to remove him from the post.”

According to Gautam, Captain Lama will not be reinstated as spokesperson for NAC.

CAAN had taken the decision to suspend Lama on Sunday.

On April 17 too, the flight safety department of CAAN had sought a clarification from Lama as he had made controversial remarks related to flight safety and decided to ground him today.

A few days ago, Lama had given an interview where he had challenged CAAN to revoke his flying licence.

“As per law, pilots are prohibited from flying when there are under any stress or anxiety and Captain Lama will have to take classes on the flying rules once again,” Gautam added.